


this town is a song about you

by femmenerd



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/M, Future Fic, POV Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-01-25
Updated: 2008-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:16:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femmenerd/pseuds/femmenerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-finale. </p><p> </p><p>  <i>Being Rory’s husband is different from being her boyfriend.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	this town is a song about you

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to [Oxoniensis](http://archiveofourown.org/users/oxoniensis/pseuds/Signe) for the beta. Title from the Dar Williams song “The Ocean.”
> 
> Originally posted on LJ [here.](http://femmenerd.livejournal.com/298023.html)

Dean wakes up at five AM to the sound of the hacking cough that accompanies Rory’s yearly bout of bronchitis. She’s curled up into herself, her pj-covered back to him under the quilt. Dean reaches an automatic hand over to rub her back, stroking the wing-bones of her shoulders soothingly, but the rattle persists. 

“Roll over,” he whispers and she complies, falling onto her front so he can pound on her back with the flat of his hand–it’s the only thing that loosens the mucous in her lungs when she gets this far gone. After he’s beat out a rhythm for a minute or two, she twists an arm back to touch his wrist. 

“Good now,” she mutters, breath coming evenly again.

“Do you want some tea or something?” Dean asks, but she’s already asleep, snoring lightly. He steps out of bed regardless; he’s used to getting up early for work anyway. Not today though. Today is for errands and catering to the needs of his ailing wife.

Being Rory’s husband is different from being her boyfriend. Different from the last extended time, nothing like the half-assed one before that, but in some ways similar to the beginning. They have routines, an ever-evolving set of in-jokes; he feels like he’s hers. 

But it’s not different because of a Sookie-catered party at the Inn or a piece of paper acquired from the Star’s Hollow justice of the peace (Kirk, of course). Dean knows better than anyone that wedding vows aren’t a magical incantation, but they were a promise, a ritual that this time was less of a prescribed social script and more about _him_ , about the two of them specifically. Especially that part where Rory promised to let him pick the Friday night movie every once in awhile and Dean averred that he’d never slip her decaf coffee. Their relationship has a sense of humor again. 

The wooden slats of the bedroom floor are cold on the pads of Dean’s feet and the chilly October air puckers his nipples, so he pulls a hoodie sweatshirt over his head and trudges downstairs to stoke the wood stove. He wanted this–the hearth and home, the creaky steps and the New England post and beam architecture. He likes that their house is a work-in-progress, something old and the worse for wear that he can make sturdy and beautiful again with hard work. Rory said it was a metaphor the day they signed the paperwork with the realtor. Dean just smiled and scrawled his name on the dotted line beneath hers, feeling a little more married.

Newspaper, kindling, and two solid birch logs, papery bark igniting first. Dean sits back on his heels and watches it all take flame. When he was a boy scout back in Chicago he never really thought fire starting was going to be a necessary skill in his life. He’d never even been camping then. He’d said he wanted to be a pro baseball player when he grew up. Or a fireman. Now Dean’s a member of the volunteer fire department like a good small town citizen and pitches for the Doose’s softball team, even though Taylor still drives him insane and he works for Gypsy now anyway. It’s a good life.

Still, sometimes Dean feels like he’s impersonating a grown up. Like he and Rory are playing house. Of course, he knows that the fact that he _didn’t_ think that way with Lindsay when he was eighteen is proof that he was then, but not now. This is real. 

*

Dean’s had toast, scrambled eggs, bacon and a protein shake before he goes back upstairs to check on Rory, yellow legal pad list in hand. He keeps lots of easily prepared, simple foods on hand because although Rory eats near constantly, Dean’s not as gastronomically adventurous as she is. Besides, he knew going into this that the Donna Reed dinner when he was sixteen was likely to be the last time she cooked for him. Laundry she does, making the bed and plunging the toilet too–even, he’s ashamed to admit, picking up his socks from time to time–but her name isn’t Lorelai Gilmore Junior for nothing. 

“I’m taking the truck into town,” he says, touching the palm of his hand to her heated forehead, “Do you need anything?” 

At first Rory just moans dramatically. Then, “Pie,” she croaks. “Pie is the answer to everything.”

Dean purses his mouth in amusement but acquiesces. “Okay, but you’re getting soup first. Soup with vegetables in it.” 

She smiles wanly, peering up at him through red-rimmed eyes. “You’re going to be a better mother than me.”

“Whatever,” he replies dismissively. They’re not expecting yet, but the necessary discussions have been had about the enormity of this step, the freaking out about whether they’re ready. Rory’s been off her birth control pills for months now and the serious talking has made way for smutty whisperings in bed: “I’m gonna fuck you pregnant,” and “Fill me up, Dean, fill me up.” He likes how she still blushes when they make love, but gives him dirty instructions all the same. She likes words, his girl, and not just multisyllabic ones. 

She’s going to be a great mother, Dean thinks. 

“Oyster crackers,” Rory says suddenly. “Ask for four packages at least. Luke will grumble but he’ll do it for me.” 

Dean jots a note down on his list. Extra crackers, caulking for the leak in the upstairs bathroom–pie. “Got it,” he affirms, putting paper and pen down to root around in the closet for real clothes. 

Rory sits up and watches as he gets dressed, leering as he strips off his sweatshirt and pajama bottoms. The pointedly lascivious expression etched across her delicate features cracks him up, especially paired with the way she’s sniffling to boot. “Hold it right there,” she orders as he reaches for his boxer shorts.

“It’s freezing in here, baby,” Dean grumbles but does a little turn for her anyway. He can’t help it though and goes more for silly than sexy, thrusting up into the air so his junk flops up and down, and is rewarded with hoarse peals of laughter from Rory.

“Chippendales here you come!” she howls.

“Chippendales dancers wear banana hammocks,” Dean tells her. “And bow ties, obviously.”

“You have a bow tie,” she points out. 

“Yeah, and you have a fever.” As soon as he says it, Dean realizes that he’s opened himself up for a plethora of patented Gilmore puns, but for once Rory just grins and leaves it alone. She reaches for her laptop where it’s stationed at the bedside table. “No!” Dean admonishes. “No work for you. Rest. Jesus, woman.”

Just then she’s hit with another series of wracking coughs, inadvertently proving his point. Rory pouts. “How do you know I wasn’t going to surf You Tube for homemade Muppets music videos?”

“I don’t,” he says, suspicious. 

“Puppets rocking out is good for my soul,” Rory proclaims, but puts the laptop away. 

Dean grabs his list and kisses her forehead. “Be good.”

*

Dean listens to the oldies station on the drive into town, tapping out a beat on the gear shift with his fingers and taking the curves with practiced ease. He didn’t plan to settle here, and Rory certainly didn’t, but after years of big city journalism for her and his own flight to a different small town–years when they were apart–nothing else made sense once they came back together. Rory said she wanted daily access to Luke’s diner; Dean wanted her. He knows that they both wanted to feel like they belonged somewhere again. 

So Rory drives into Hartford once or twice a week for meetings with her editors and writes her column from home the rest of the time. And Gypsy was only too happy to start grooming Dean to take over the garage. He used to associate everything about this town with Rory, every eccentricity and bizarre local ritual–he still does, but when asked, Dean never says he’s from Chicago anymore. 

“How’s that beautiful wife of yours?” Miss Patty calls out as Dean approaches the dance studio on his way to the hardware store. She’s stationed by the door as usual, gesticulating with her cigarette holder and nodding along to the record player as a gaggle of little girls wearing puffy red apple-shaped costumes twirl around like tops inside, probably in preparation for some harvest festival or other–this may be his town, but Dean still can’t keep track. 

“Phlegmy,” Dean answers. “Demanding.” He puffs out his chest and pushes his hair out of his eyes. 

“You take good care of her, don’t you, Sugar?” Miss Patty winks. Dean flushes at the innuendo dripping from her jolly, lipsticked mouth and waves as he passes by. 

He jingles his keys in his hand as he walks on, grinning sheepishly when multiple acquaintances catch him gleefully kicking fallen leaves with his boot. It’s his favorite time of year, when the foliage is at its most colorfully spectacular and everything smells like wood smoke and cinnamon. 

Dean puts his purchases at the hardware store on his tab, not because he needs to but because he’s finally getting it that customs like that mean trust around here. He does a fairly good job of pretending to listen carefully to Babette outside Doose’s market when she treats him to an enthusiastic, nasally speech about weird holistic remedies for Rory’s chest congestion. Neither of them have seen or spoken to Babette since Rory got sick, of course. Once he’s inside Taylor has entirely different opinions about the best cures for bronchitis. That and a plea for Dean to “work his influence” with Gypsy to get her to endorse a change in commercial zoning policy.

By the time Dean makes it through the glass doors of Luke’s diner he’s starving himself, so he plops down at the counter with the intention of ordering a cheeseburger. His mother-in-law is behind the counter, which is weird but not unheard of. She pours coffee into a to-go mug and looks around surreptitiously for signs of Luke, whose voice booms from out of sight, presumably the kitchen. “Can’t you wait two seconds?” Luke grouses with apparent omniscience. 

“For coffee?” Lorelai asks rhetorically. “Not on your life.” She smirks at Dean and pats his arm across the counter before quickly scampering out from behind it, screwing the lid on her travel mug at the same time. “Besides, I’m your wife,” she yells. Lorelai seems pleased with her rhyme and pauses for dramatic effect. “Rory got a caffeine-related clause in her wedding vows–I’m just following her illustrious example.” Before Luke can even retort, she’s addressing Dean. “You here for pie?”

“Uh, yeah,” Dean answers. “And soup.” 

“Pie is the answer to everything,” Lorelai says immediately. 

“So I’ve heard.” 

*

When Dean gets back Rory is fresh out of the shower, her eyes over-bright, but she’s upright, changing the sheets on their bed.

“My hero!” she says when he holds up the bounty he’s brought her. “I couldn’t stand the smell of myself anymore,” she continues, with the conversational logic of someone who’s been cooped up inside for days. 

“You _were_ getting pretty rank,” Dean jokes, instinctually leaning down to kiss her. 

“Germs!” Rory yelps, dodging him.

“I doubt you’re still contagious.” 

“Well,” she says, sipping chicken broth straight from the container and sitting down on the bed. “Just because _you’re_ always a hornball when you’re sick....”

“You love it.” Dean chuckles, gazing at her as she enthusiastically spoons chunks of potatoes and celery into her mouth. Rory’s not looking her best, nose pink and cheeks pale, but he’s relieved to see that she looks heartier than this morning. She looks rumpled and human, his. 

“Yeah, I like being molested by a six foot five, babytalking erection.” She points her plastic spoon at him. “I don’t really get it, actually. How all of you can be incapacitated except for your dick.” 

Dean shrugs. “I think it’s kind of romantic–that even when I can hardly think straight, all I want is you.”

Rory looks up from her soup, lips curved into a wry smile. “Yeah,” she agrees, lifting her cheek for him to kiss. 

*

Later that night, snuggling _does_ shift into sex, at Rory’s instigation. After he’s held her peaceably through two black and white movies she has entirely memorized; after her nightly, nonsensical phone call with her mother; after multiple pots of Gypsy Cold Care tea and the completion of dental hygiene rituals. Spooning into her from behind; Rory’s flannel nightie rucked up, her panties and Dean’s pajamas pushed down just enough. Languid, syrupy movement–they’re not goal oriented in this at all–and in his half-asleep haze Dean thinks that this is it. This is why _being married_ is different than getting married. Making love but not kissing because one of you is too snotty. Things like that. Things like how as much as he takes care of her, now he knows she’ll take care of him right back. 

“I love you, Rory,” he mumbles. 

“I love you too, Dean.”


End file.
